Women filmmakers once again enjoy welcoming world of Whistler Film Festival

Dana Gee, Vancouver Sun12.07.2017

Lucinda Armstrong Hall, left, and Charlotte Salisbury play two teenage girls in writer/director Ingrid Veninger's new feature film, Porcupine Lake. The film was one of 14 features directed by women at this year's Whistler Film Festival.submitted
/ Vancouver Sun

It was just recently reported that Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s new coming-of-age film, is now the best-reviewed movie on the popular Rotten Tomatoes online aggregate review site.

Now, to be clear, the film was written and directed by Gerwig, a female, and it tells the story of a teenage girl and her relationship with her mother, both females.

The point is females can make films. This is, unfortunately, a point Hollywood is still slow to fully grasp.

Take for example Patty Jenkins. She wrote and directed Wonder Woman, a true chick flick super hit that grossed US$819 million worldwide. So you’d think handing her the reins again for the sequel would be a no-brainer, right? Wrong. Apparently it took some time for the Warner Brothers suits to sign off on a deal for Jenkins to write, direct and produce the sequel. It has been reported she will make between $9 million to $11 million for those three, count ’em, three jobs. I’m sure that makes her the highest-paid female director, but again reports say that cheque doesn’t come close to what dudes collect for steering a comic-book franchise film.

Feel free to sigh.

So while Hollywood is still dragging its knuckles, the good news is film festivals like the one that just concluded up at Whistler are a welcoming home for women behind the lens.

This year 30 per cent (14 features and 16 short films) of the 87 movies at the Whistler Film Festival were produced by female filmmakers.

While the director is often looked to first as a signpost, the WFF’s programmer, Paul Gratton, points out that the whole of the industry still needs some fine-tuning.

“It’s not just who is directing, but it is who is producing. Who is writing and who is controlling the stories,” said Gratton. “When women make up 50 per cent of the population it was always so shocking how unrepresented they were in the film world. Although now that all the sexual-harassment allegations are coming out, maybe you will see a cause and effect at the top.”

While a sea change is hopefully in the works (Telefilm has announced that in terms of their programs there will be equity by 2020), festivals like Whistler take their own initiative and encourage women filmmakers with special events like Women on Top Keynote and the Breakfast event. This year, top-grossing producer Susan Cartsonis addressed the crowd.

Gratton reports that during his six years with the festival he has seen the number of women involved increase.

“Right across the board even the labs and training we provide, the registration rolls are about 40 per cent (women). They are not quite at 50 yet, but we are finding increasing interest on the part of women,” said Gratton. “Clearly they see there are some opportunities and some openings.”

“I think festivals are an incredible platform because they let our films reach audiences. They get eyes on the work. They lead to further invitations and maybe even an award and recognition. Ideally we all want to continue making films. We all want to create a body of work,” said filmmaker Ingrid Veninger, who was at WFF with the feature Porcupine Lake. “The aim is to keep going and the way we keep going is by making sure we not only tell great stories and make strong films, but that they get out in the world and reach an audience. Festivals are a crucial step to that being a reality.”

For Gratton and other film-lovers, having more women delivering movies means getting more varied stories told.

“My view is they definitely have different stories to tell and it is a welcome counter-balance,” said Gratton about the female voice. “I look at Ingrid Veninger’s Porcupine Lake. You know a man couldn’t have told that story. A man would have stumbled through that like an elephant stomping through flowers.”

Porcupine Lake is the story of a pair of girls as they straddle that shaky line between childhood and adulthood during one hot summer in Northern Ontario.

Veninger said it was a struggle to get this film made because it was about two young girls. The coming-of-age genre, up until now thank you again Lady Bird, was the territory of the teenage boy.

Porcupine Lake, which will be in theatres in February/March 2018, is worth noting also because of its genesis.

A few years ago Veninger was accepting an award at WFF when she decided to throw down a challenge to the audience that sat before her. She proposed what was called the Femme Lab. Basically she asked someone to handover $6,000 to six female Canadian screenwriters. They would in turn write a script each in six months.

Long story short, Academy Award-winning actor Melissa Leo stood up in the room and pledged the money. The six screenwriters are: Anais Granofsky, Danishka Esterhazy, Michelle Latimer, Mars Horodyski, Sophie Deraspe and Veninger.

Later, four of the six women went to N.Y. and stayed with Leo.

“I slept next to her Academy Award. She had all our scripts laid out on the table and she gave feedback,” said Veninger, whose feature at WFF this year also comes with the companion documentary, the making The Other Side of Porcupine Lake (directed by Julian Papas). “She has been a champion and a supporter.”

Veninger feels the issue continues to be the idea that women helming films is risky business. She scoffs at that as she considers all the hard work she and others have successfully done in order to get their visions to the screen.

“Women are capable. Women have experience. That experience is transferable,” added Veninger, who calls Toronto home and has six features on her resume. “I feel like men have made all kinds of mediocre films, but they’re just assumed to be given this credit that they know what they are doing regardless of experience. Women are considered a risk regardless of experience. It’s like we are always having to prove ourselves over and over.”

Veninger points to the treatment of Catherine Hardwicke, the director of the first Twilight movie as an example of her point.

“She made Twilight, it made (US)$400 million and then she was thrown back into the trenches after making one misfire — Red Riding Hood. It didn’t make a lot of money and now she is back to ground zero. How many guys have failed and are given the key to the city and given a multimillion-dollar gig right on the back of doing something that has bombed?” asked Veninger.

It should be noted men directed all of the Twilight sequels.

For Darcy Hennessey Turenne, the director behind the WFF’s closing-night film, the history of mountain biking documentary, The Moment, her pre-film life as a pro mountain biker helped to prepare her for the masculine-heavy filmmaking world.

“Coming into film, which I would say isn’t as dangerous, but is equally gender-imbalanced, is kind of familiar territory for me,” said Hennessey Turenne, adding women aren’t looking for a free ride just a fair one. “I don’t like tokenism and I don’t like being given opportunity just because I am a woman. I really want talent to speak for itself. It’s funny because with my name being kind of coed, it’s kind nice because everything is just judged based off of talent or the product.”

The Moment will be screening at Vancouver’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts on Dec. 8.

Female filmmakers, are of course, noticing the change in their numbers, but they still see a long road ahead and Veninger thinks that journey starts young and should start with a kinder, more positive map.

“My very first junior kindergarten report card, the teacher wrote: ‘Ingrid enjoys working with others and is learning not to be too bossy,’ ” said Veninger. “Well, hopefully that same teacher would say something different for today’s girl. Perhaps, something like: ‘She enjoys working with others and displays strong leadership skills.’ ”

Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com.

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Women filmmakers once again enjoy welcoming world of Whistler Film Festival

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